“I didn’t realize how deep the water was. I couldn’t make it all the way to the bottom and stay there long enough to pull the bag out of the dirt. And there were all these roots in the way.”

Just the thought of it made Kate shiver. What was going on? Devin was a dreamer, not a risk taker, so this was simply baffling. “Have you ever seen this alligator before?” Kate asked gently. “Or did this just start here?”

“He lives here.”

“And he talks to you?”

“Yes.”

“And he told you where the Alligator Box was?”

“That’s what I keep trying to tell you!” Devin said, her skinny arms and legs trembling with frustration.

“Does he have a name?” Kate asked.

Devin suddenly stilled and looked at her curiously. “You know what his name is.”

“No, I don’t.”

“His name is Billy.”

A slight chill ran through her. It suddenly made sense, in a distant way, like remembering a decision you made long ago, one you wouldn’t make now, but one that had made perfect sense back then. Putting aside her disbelief and confusion and worry for a moment—all things the adult in her felt—Kate found that the only thing left was the one true thing.

Kate had left her childhood here.

And Devin had found it.

*   *   *

Decades ago, Wes’s father and uncle—brothers Lyle and Lazlo—jointly inherited two large plots of land on either side of the interstate. Older brother Lazlo had moved from Suley years before, gotten a job in construction in Atlanta, then met and married the daughter of the man who owned the construction company. He quickly went from a manual laborer to the man in charge, the first in a long line of ne’er-do-well, dirt-poor-but-land-rich Patterson men to do so. Lazlo convinced his younger brother Lyle to split the inheritance, giving Lazlo sole right to the acreage to the north of the interstate. Everyone thought he was being magnanimous, because Lyle and his new wife and young son Wes needed somewhere to live, and the land to the south of the interstate was beautiful and had an old hunting cabin on it. What Lazlo didn’t tell his brother was that the northern land was actually prime real estate, and he had plans to develop it. The southern land, on the other hand, was basically worthless without the land that curved around it like a question mark and locked most of it in—Eby’s and George’s Lost Lake property.

So Lazlo developed his land, built an outlet mall and a water park, and brought a lot of money into the county. He became Suley’s golden boy, while Lyle was holed away in a cabin that didn’t even have electricity. Wes’s younger brother, Billy, was born six years later, and their mother left them soon afterward. Wes didn’t know what happened to her. Years ago, someone said they’d seen her hitchhiking just outside of Houston. Hitchhiking west, away from here.